This special issue is a direct outgrowth of a partnership between InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies and Thinking Gender 2015, the 25th Annual Graduate Student Research Conference sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. This year's conference foregrounds feminist approaches to knowledge production, addressing historical and contemporary marginalization, access to technology and resources, educational opportunity and structural oppression. InterActions situates this forthcoming special issue in conversation with activists, scholars and artists whose work engages critically with feminist epistemology and knowledge production. This issue seeks to complicate and deconstruct hegemonic ideas of what counts as knowledge, the effects of which challenge traditional approaches to pedagogy, information literacy and information access. InterActions is committed to an intersectional approach, recognizing that markers and categories of gender, biological difference and sexuality co-constitute political and embodied subjectivities alongside and through race, class and ability. Both Education and Information Studies contend with both the pragmatic and the theoretical and are intimately tied to technologies and techniques of social control. We must commit to developing and nurturing critical language and research agendas contending with gender, sexuality and identities. We hope to continue to challenge and expand existing conversations as well as break new ground through crucial, interdisciplinary work. Additionally, Education and Information Studies can offer entryways into all parts of the knowledge production lifecyle and each provide their unique points of critical interrogation. We welcome a range of submissions, including (but not limited to) research articles, literature reviews, book reviews, exhibition reviews, featured commentaries, position pieces, literary or artistic pieces. All submissions will be subject to double-blind peer review and the authors are expected to adhere to the deadlines to ensure the timely publication of the special issue.

Thinking Gender 2015, CSW’s 25th Annual Graduate Student Research Conference, promises to strengthen scholarly networks and inspire lively conversation. To help make this landmark anniversary a memorable success, we have expanded the conference to a two-day schedule at UCLA’s Covel Commons and added a keynote address, poster exhibition, awards for papers and posters, student travel grants, workshops, and more.

This year, scholars from near and far will present exciting and innovative work on the tangled relationships between knowledge and the gendered body. Presentations, including 12 illustrated posters and 43 research papers in 12 fascinating panels, will cover a wide array of topics, including issues of biomedical body and knowledge production, sexuality in Asian media, feminist inquiry and practices, queer body and sexuality in performance, gendered militarism and social protests, and of gendered roles and professionalism. Also featured are discussions on exploring identity and culture of movement, contesting anthropocentrism, claiming public visibility and power, challenging stereotype of body in the arts, locating agency in politics of the body, and contesting marginality.

These presentations span the topics that are interdisciplinary, transnational, cross-regional, and both contemporary and historical. Representing 33 colleges and universities from around the world, our presenters come from disciplines in humanities and sciences at UCLA, from other UC campuses and other states, and from Australia, Poland, Canada, France, Germany, and China. We envision that the conference will interest a broad audience, from north and south campus of UCLA, as well as from local academic and lay communities.

We will open the conference with a keynote address, “Body Modifications: Violence, Labor, and the Subject of Feminism,” by Rebecca M. Herzig, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Chair of the Program in Women and Gender Studies at Bates College (http://www.bates.edu/gender/faculty/rebecca-m-herzig/), from 2 to 3:15 pm. The keynote address is cosponsored by the UCLA Colloquium in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. On this first day, we will also introduce Professor Herzig’s new book, Plucked: A History of Hair Removal, will available for purchase. In Plucked, Professor Herzig describes the surprising histories of race, science, industry, and medicine behind hair-removal practices and norms.

The poster exhibition will take place on the first day, following the keynote address. After the poster exhibition, we will award the student travel grant, best posters, and best papers. These awardees will receive certificates and financial awards. All awardees have an opportunity to publish in a special Spring 2015 issue of InterActions or Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience.

The panel presentations are scheduled for the second day, Friday, April 24, from 9 am to 12:15 pm, and from 2:45 to 6 pm. Also on Friday will be a networking lunch and two workshops, “Fight Like a Woman” with Marcus Kowal and “Acupressure: Massaging Your Way to Optimal Health” with Dr. Felicia Yu.

Fight Like a Woman will discuss the practicality and thinking behind Krav Maga and the mental game when in a situation where self-defense is necessary. Marcus Kowal (above), the lead instructor and owner of System Training Center, is a profesional kickboxer and MMA fighter and 2nd degree Krav Maga Black Belt. This workshop is cosponsored by Marcus Kowal and Systems Training Center (http://systemstrainingcenter.com).

In Massaging Your Way to Optimal Health, Dr. Felicia Yu (above)will show participants how to stimulate their own acupressure points to alleviate such symptoms as pain, headache, nausea, menstrual cramps, abdominal pain, and insomnia. Dr. Yu is an East-West Primary Care Fellow at the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine.

Thinking Gender 2015 welcomes you to join us for two days of inspiring scholarship, energetic conversation, and lively networking.

--Chien-Ling Liu

Chien-Ling Liu is the conference coordinator of Thinking Gender 2015. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at UCLA. Her dissertation is on the microbiological studies and public health work by the Pasteur Institutes in China between 1899 and 1950, particularly concerning prophylaxes of smallpox and rabies. She is interested in power dynamics of scientific knowledge production and practices in cross-cultural contexts, relating to the issues of modernity. When not writing her dissertation, she enjoys going to movies and playing badminton.

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Thinking Gender is open to the public and all are welcome. Attendance at conference panels and the keynote address is free. A registration fee of $35 provides access to the conference workshops, networking lunch, and keynote cocktail reception; you’ll also get a Thinking Gender tote bag and CSW ceramic mug. Select PRIME when you visit the registration website: https://uclacsw.submittable.com

Location of Covel Commons on the campus of UCLA: http://maps.ucla.edu/campus/?locid=329